Disruptive Leadership:

How to Create a
Winning Team
Chris McCusker, Ph.D.
Colleen and George McCullough
Professor of Leadership and Ethics
A.B. Freeman School of Business
Tulane University
Disruptive Leadership Teams

n  “It’s not the strongest of the species

who survives, nor the most intelligent.
Rather it is the one most adaptive to
change.” -- Charles Darwin
n  Evolutionary versus Revolutionary
Change
q  Survival can require REVOLUTIONARY
or DISRUPTIVE change
n  Group is the basic unit of survival in
human adaptation and business is no
exception

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Emergence of positive psychology

n  Happiness

n  Engagement

n  Meaningfulness

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Leadership

Leadership is
going first in a
new direction…&
being followed.
Robert S. Galvin, Motorola

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Leadership: Four Approaches

n  Heroic

n  Situation

n  Matching

n  Design

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Thought Experiment

n  Who is a leader whom

you greatly admire?

n  Why?

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Four Approaches: Heroic

Insert Hero Here

Effectiveness
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Four Approaches: Heroic

Leader
Characteristics
& Traits

Effectiveness
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Heroic leadership is about character

“Leadership is a potent
combination of strategy &
character.
But if you must be without
one, be without the
strategy.”

General Norman Schwarzkopf

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Heroic leadership is about character

“Leadership is a
matter of how to
be, before it’s
about how to
do.”
Frances Hesselbein

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1. Heroic Leadership: Effectiveness?

n  Effectiveness is about SELECTION

n  Getting the right people on the team

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Turknett Leadership Character
Model™

A successful leader must balance both sides of the scale.

www.leadershipcharacter.com

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1. Heroic Leadership: Positive

n  Seligman’s “Learned Optimism”

n  There is a test

n  ABCDE Method

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Logic of Learned Optimism

“One of the most significant

findings in psychology in the
last 20 years is that
individuals can choose the
way we think.”
--Martin Seligman, 1965
(quoted in Seligman, 1991)

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More than positive thinking

www. makeadentleadership.com 15
 Example: Ernest Shackleton

Optimism is the true moral courage

-- Ernest Shackleton

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Example: MetLife

n  MetLife experienced dismal results with its

sales force
q  Hired 5000 sales persons per year
q  Half quit the first year
q  4/5ths quite within five years

n  Hired Seligman to test for optimism

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Example: MetLife

n  “Met Life then changed its hiring practices to

include screening candidates for optimism. In
less than two years, the company had more
success hiring agents, expanded its sales force
to more than 12,000, and increased its market
share of the personal insurance market by
50%”. --HR Magazine)

n  "Applicants who were optimists, but failed to

meet MET LIFE's other standard test criteria,
were hired anyway. This group outsold its
pessimistic counterparts by 21% its first year
and by 57% the next." --Fortune
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Building the Team

n  Select based on the usual stuff….

(expertise, experience)

n  ..but also CHARACTER (have a

model)...

n  …and in particular disruptive

leadership needs LEARNED
OPTIMISM.

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Four Approaches: Situation

Situation

Effectiveness
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2. Situation as Leader: What is it?

n  Myth of heroic leadership

n  Heroic approach ignores 20th century

social psychology
q  Milgram’s studies and 1000s more
q  Situations are powerful
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The Nuremberg Defense

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Obedience to Authority

Stanley Milgram

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Milgram Experiment – Sample of Some Conditions

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Others Phones it in Original Study Subsidiary
Refused task
Source: Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority. Harper and Row. New York.
ISBN: 0-06-131-983
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2. Situation as leader: Effectiveness?

n  Hackman’s Leader Attribution Error

n  Success depends on circumstances
beyond one’s control

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2. Situation as Leader: Positive

n  Create conditions that enable desired

patterns of interaction

n  Examples: Motorola and quality; GE

and “work-out”

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THREE APPROACHES: MATCHING

Situation Leader
Characteristics

Matching
Process

Effectiveness
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 Consult (Grp)

Consult (Indiv) Facilitate

Decide Delegate

Decision Significance

Likelihood of Disagreement

I have the knowledge Group has the knowledge

Commitment without involvement I need commitment

is likely
Development is important
Time is valuable
Goals are aligned
Interaction is difficult
or impossible Group is a TEAM

Copyright Vroom 2001

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3. Matching: Positive

“ The task of leadership is to

create an alignment of
strengths…” --Peter Drucker

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Gallup strengths index

1.  Every week I set goals and

expectations based on my strengths.
2.  I can name the strengths of 5 people
I work with.
3.  In the last three months, my
supervisor and I had a meaningful
discussion of my strengths.
4.  My organization is committed to
building the strengths of each
associate.

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Managerial focus and engagement

70

60

50

40 Engaged
Not Engaged
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Disengaged
20

10

0
Strengths Weaknesses Ignored

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Four Approaches:
Leading is Designing a Fit

n  Understand, recognize & create value

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Conversations, Meetings, Teamwork

n  There is a critical skill that has been

TOTALLY FORGOTTEN in leadership
studies

n  FACILITATION

n  Disruptive Leading by Design Requires

Team Processes About Creativity and
Risk Taking and a Series of Crucial,
Difficult Meetings

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Canavan and McCusker’s Model of
Facilitating

n  In/Out
n  On/Off
n  Up/Down
n  Fast/Slow
n  High/Low
n  Near/Far

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Summary: Disruptive Leadership

n  Heroic

n  Situation

n  Matching

n  Design

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Q and A

We need your help!

“In the end, the greatest promise for the

researcher probably lies in close
association with practitioners of this
black art and opportunity to observe
their styles, methods, and tricks of the
trade.” General Maxwell Taylor, 1997

Thank you!

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